Forgotten Artist: Cliff Bruner ~ When You're Smiling

The Life and Work of Cliff Bruner: Cliff Bruner & His Texas Wanderers

Cliff Bruner was a pioneer of Western swing, becoming one of the most influential musicians in the history of Texas country music during his lifetime. Bruner forged his early music career in the Texas Golden Triangle (Beaumont, Port Arthur, Orange). Bruner went from working alongside western swing pioneer Milton Brown to forming his own band, The Texas Wanderers, a western swing outfit with a typical mix of blues, pop and jazz in their sound. Key members like Bob Dunn and Moon Mullican helped the group rule the dance-band scene in Houston during the classic era of Western swing.


Clifton Bruner, a western swing fiddler and bandleader, was born in Texas City, Texas, USA on April 25, 1915. While still in school, Bruner played at local dances and eventually toured with Doc Scott's medicine show. In 1934, Bruner joined the ground-breaking western swing band, Milton Brown & His Musical Brownies. Western swing is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat; which attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the classic era (1937 ~ 1945). Brown was the first Texas bandleader to use twin fiddles. Milton paired Bruner with Cecil Brower and this duo became the trademark sound of Brown's music. Cliff recorded forty-eight sides with the Brownies on the Decca label (1936). The band's promising future ended with Brown's untimely death in 1936. After Brown's death, Bruner returned to Houston and formed a group called the Texas Wanderers.

The key musicians who played with this band included Bob Dunn (steel guitar), Leo Raley (mandolin), J. R. Chatwell (fiddle), Dickie McBride (guitar, vocals), Hezzy Bryant (bass guitar) and Moon Mullican (piano). In 1937, Bruner signed a contract with Decca Records and the Wanderers became one of the most popular and successful Texas Gulf Coast ensembles. They were a top performing attraction in Houston on radio KXYZ and then shifted to Beaumont KDFM (1937 -- 1941), where they played live radio shows daily. Station KDFM listenership crossed the state line into heavily Cajun Southwestern Louisiana. As did other Western swing bands, the Wanderers fused traditional fiddle-led country music with elements of '20s and '30s pop and jazz. But Bruner, from the start, favored a strikingly contemporary sound.

As the bandleader of his Wanderers, Bruner carved out a place in country music history by focusing on a new kind of song; not the smooth, heavily jazz-influenced arrangements to which other Texas bands of the day aspired, but simpler vocal pieces with lyrics that spoke of disillusionment and hard luck. In addition to running his own show, Cliff also played in McBride's band, the Village Boys. Sharing band members was common practice back then and several of the band members played in each others outfits; the Texas Wanderers, the Village Boys, Bob Dunn's Vagabonds and so on.

The Texas Wanderers' recordings on the Decca label crowded jukeboxes along the oil-rich, heavily industrialized Texas Gulf Coast. The Wanderers turned out such hits as Milk Cow Blues (1937), When You're Smiling (1939) and the first truck-driving song, Truck Driver's Blues (1939). Ten Pretty Girls (1940), Red River Rose (1941), Roadside Rag (1945), You Always Hurt the One You Love (1947), Mr. Postman (1949) and You Better Do Better Baby (1950), were among the one hundred-twenty-three songs recorded by the Wanderers on the Decca label. Among the many songs featuring vocalist Dickie McBride were several that were recognized in retrospect as early classics of the honky-tonk genre. The Wanderers had perhaps its most popular song with It Makes No Difference Now (1938). Apparently their recording sessions were interrupted during World War II because their song catalog does not include the years from 1942 ~ 1944. Bruner recorded for Decca into the mid-40s and then switched to the Ayo label. Surprisingly, none of the Wanderers' songs made it into the Billboard top-forty country music chart.

During his long career, Bruner also played with other groups, including those of W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel and Jimmy Davis, who used their bands to promote their political campaigns. In the 1950s, Bruner dissolved the Wanderers, but continued to work with Mullican and with other musicians who were forging modern country music out of the forms of western swing. Bruner and Mullican headed a band called the Showboys and Cliff made some recordings for Mercury and for small Texas labels after World War II.

Cliff Bruner died of cancer on August 25, 2000. Cliff was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame and the Western Swing Society Hall of Fame.

Cliff Bruner & His Texas Wanderers (1936 ~ 1952): Cliff Bruner (fiddler, bandleader), Bob Dunn (steel guitar), Moon Mullican (piano), Cecil Brower (violin, vocals), Leo Raley (electric mandolin), J. R. Chatwell (fiddle), Dickie McBride (guitar, vocals). ~ RJB 8/2010

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Music

[PatrickWall12]

You are lucky to have such a great uncle. Cliff Bruner's band is one of the best and this is one of their best songs. This is the SWING part of Western Swing.

[THEBIGNASTYINTEXAS]

Cliff was my Great Uncle,  I can remember him coming to my home and having a jam session, with some of my friends. They were such good times. He was a good fiddle player and great man. I do miss him.

[PatrickWall12]

Great music. The vocalist on this song and many others for Bruner is Moon Mullican.

[badbrian1]

@badbrian1 I meant 2:09

[badbrian1]

Guitar solos at 1:09 imitates a trumpet!!

[nickellodeon55]

1939 top ten in the little-known Billboard early country charts.